Hank Plante

Veteran newsman Hank Plante may have retired to Southern California last spring, but KPIX (CBS 5) wisely continues to rely upon his experience and expertise.

Plante makes a return to Bay Area TV screens next week for a series of reports that will mark the 30th anniversary of the AIDS epidemic.

Plante’s stories will be integrated into Channel 5’s 6 p.m. newscasts beginning Monday, May 30, and continuing through Sunday, June 2. Topics covered will include, among others, the history of AIDS and current medical advances.

The stories will be repackaged into a half-hour special airing at 7 p.m June 4, with an encore on June 5.

On June 5, 1981, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that a rare pneumonia struck five gay men in Los Angeles. It was the first account of an infection tied to a disease that would be come to known as HIV/AIDS.

Since then, an estimated 33.3 million people worldwide have been infected with the virus.